Decision-makers increasingly seek to design environmental and development policies that will support sustainable development Thus, practical tools to help formulate sustainable development policies and clear methods to assess their acceptability and effectiveness are urgently needed This book contributes to meeting these needs by presenting ожайп both analytical and empirical aspects of decision-making processes The authors explore the methods for integrating environmental and social sciences to supportparticipatory policy design, implementation and assessment of sustainable development policies These methods are applied, richly illustrated and discussed with reference to several case studies from various regions of the world Although each chapter has a distinct focus, they all contribute to a clearer understanding of how sustainable development is perceived and assessed by society The book is interdisciplinary, emphasizing how the integration of a wide set of disciplines and stakeholder perspectives into the policy-making process can help to improve the perception of sustainable development policies The authors argue that there should be greater transparency in the processes of modeling and integrated assessment in order to increase the meaningfulparticipation of all stakeholders involved in the decision-making process By deliberately avoiding technical jargon, this book will appeal to a broad audience including environmental, resource and development economists It will also be of interest to anyone with a scientific or policy perspective in the measurement and assessment of sustainable development.  SommerfISBN 1840649135.